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Unless they've changed it recently, in the US they'll refuse your blood if you've been in the UK for as short as 3 months (aggregate) during that period. Pretty annoying. But (somewhat) logical, since they have no way of testing for vCJD. Hopefully, someday they'll finally figure that out and take our blood again!

Yep, the rules in the US are really quite strict. Being English, I fall under the rule you describe and no, it hasn't changed.

And it's not just limited to those who have lived in the UK. Interestingly enough my wife (American) cannot give blood either thanks to the rule stating that you cannot give blood if you've spent 5 years in any one of 33 different European countries. The red cross [redcross.org] site has the entire list for vCJD.